


Lonely Days

by argentConflagration



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, M/M, Post SGRUB, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 15:10:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argentConflagration/pseuds/argentConflagration
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The time you had together passed in the blink of an eye, and you'll never get it back.</p>
<p>A remix of Lonely Nights by droolsoel, from Karkat's perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lonely Days

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Lonely Nights](https://archiveofourown.org/works/457349) by [Soelstress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soelstress/pseuds/Soelstress). 



"Karkat," your matesprit says, shutting the hive's door behind her and taking off her shoes, "the current system of legislacerator education is inherently flawed."

Looking up from your husktop, you sigh. You're accustomed to hearing at least once a week how something is broken and how she intends to fix it, whether it has to do with her classes, the legislacerators, or the law itself.

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and your life isn't as bad as you once expected. Terezi had promised you, when you were seven and had no idea what your future would hold, that she'd run away with you if it ever came to that. And she did, which is why at the age of eleven sweeps you're living together on a tiny off-planet colony.

With a little bit of finesse, you're able to pass as a maroonblood, since there's not as much surveillance here. You'll probably be able to hang out here for a few more sweeps before people start noticing the little things, like the fact that you're aging slower than any rustblood should. No one expects you to be worth training, so you shuffle from menial job to menial job. It's mind-numbing work, and there are nights you come home and swear you're quitting forever, but it pays for food and shelter and Terezi's tuition, so you put up with it.

The place you're living isn't too shabby, either, you have to admit. It's meant for one troll, but since it technically belongs to Terezi, it's in a midblood lawnring, not a hive stem. The floor of the ablution chamber is made of clean tile, and the paint (just a bit gaudy) isn't peeling.

"Listen, Terezi, all I'm saying is that, sure, the system may have its flaws, but sooner or later you're going to have to accept that everything's some kind of broken, and you can't change it all. I'm not saying that this problem you're about to describe isn't worthy of your attention, but you have priorities and goals and aspirations for yourself that you should be worrying about."

"Bluh," she sighs, hanging up her jacket. "Hear me out. If they would just give us a general explanation of the distinction between Alternian law as applied to subjugated species, and foreign law as enforced by the Alternian empire, and actually informed us about the various species and colonial bodies to which this is relevant, then we'd actually know what we're doing when they then expect us to memorize and understand the intricacies of said laws! The way we're taught it in class is completely backwards and while I am actually doing fairly well in that class, I know there are a lot of others in there who are struggling with the material, especially the cerulean and indigo bloods because, you know how it is, they expect them to be able to understand the material so much faster than everyone else--"

"Even though the idea that intelligence and blood color are related is a load of hemoist bullshit and everyone knows it," you interrupt.

"Exactly, and it's not making anyone's life easier that they stubbornly persist in using this flawed system, and--"

"Okay, fine, it sucks, I get it, but Terezi, this is exactly the kind of thing you shouldn't be wasting your breath on. There are more important issues out there than why your schoolfeeders can't be bothered to instruct you in the exact optimal way, and if you understand the material just fine, you shouldn't even worry about it."

"You're probably right," she says, heading into the kitchen. "Karkat, it is so frustrating! Why can't they just do things in a way that makes sense? Also, have you eaten yet?"

"No, I was waiting for you." Behind you, your husktop beeps.

"Oh, is that Sollux trolling you? What does he want?"

You dash off a reply to Sollux and scroll back through your recent logs. "I talked to him earlier, he said he might be able to get time off for 12th Perigee's Eve, and he's thinking of coming out here to see us. Also he told me to ask if you could contact him when you got home."

"Tell him if his psionic ass isn't here by noon on the Eve exactly, I'll be contacting his superior officers. And say I'll troll him later, I guess."

While she gets dinner for the two of you, you talk with Sollux and work on your latest coding project. You're better at it than you were as a kid, but you're still awful, and the thrill of defeating a challenge that you feel every time a line clicks into place is usually dampened by the realization that the solution had been obvious all along.

But writing little programs useful to Terezi is rewarding in a way your jobs aren't, and it's really okay that you know she calls up Sollux afterwards so that he can fix the bugs. You admit your continued interest in coding is partially a way to maintain your friendship with Sollux. It gives you something to talk about and bug each other over, so that you aren't always talking about military advances and conquests you'll never be a part of, or worse, not talking at all. Why shouldn't Terezi use it for the same reasons?

She brings a couple of plates out into the living room. She flops down onto the couch, and you close the computer and go sit next to her.

"How was your day, by the way?" she asks. "I probably don't need to tell you that mine was frustrating."

"The head of our section is changing things around again, and it's complete bullshit, as usual," you say. "But when I talked to Sollux, he helped me out with that program I showed you the other day. If this is actually worth something to other people, Sollux found a viable way for me to sell it without having to register with any official channels."

"That'd be nice," she says, leaning against your shoulder. "I know how much you hate the work you're doing now, and I really am grateful that you're doing all this for me."

"For the last fucking time, Terezi, I would probably be culled right now if not for you risking your whole future for me. Once you graduate and I succeed at something, things are going to be great. Better than I dreamed of in my ridiculous childhood fantasies."

"That's because your childhood fantasies didn't have me."

* * *

She takes out her textbooks when she's finished eating. "That was delicious."

"That was reheated grubloaf from days ago, you weirdo," you say. "And I don't know how you manage to enjoy the stuff I make even when it's fresh."

"Oh, be quiet, your cooking's fine," she says.

You take the plates into the kitchen and go grab your husktop to keep talking to Sollux while she studies. It's pretty clear to you that your best friend is courting your matesprit as a moirail, which always makes you a little uneasy to think about, and you're not sure whether you're afraid that it won't work out or afraid that it will.

It's not long before she closes her textbooks and stands up. "I guess I should go talk to Sollux." Her tone is hardly enthusiastic, and she makes sure every paper is in place before getting up and heading towards the other room. She pauses and bites her lip, turning to you with a hesitant look.

"He would have wanted you to be happy, you know," you say. She knows exactly who you're talking about.

"I know," she answers, and heads off to speak with her potential moirail.

* * *

When you turn your attention back to your husktop, Sollux has left you a dense chunk of corrections. With a sigh, you open up the program window again and start working on incorporating his feedback. Immediately Trollian flashes again, a message from Sollux saying that he'll be busy for a while.

Sometimes it's easy for you to forget that Terezi was as close to Dave as you were. You don't know if either of them ever said the word 'moirail,' but she spent a sweep and a half with him, just like you did, before you won the game and were sent back to Alternia. You don't talk about that time as often as you should.

It makes you angry just thinking about it. It wasn't fucking fair that after a short sweep and a half, you were ripped apart with no closure, no goodbyes. He was the fucking knight of the stuff, the least he could have done would have been to give her--to give you--more time.

You're once again furious at him, even though in the back of your mind you know it's not his fault. It's an anger that curls around inside you and aches in your stomach, seeking a connection that was severed sweeps ago. When you saw him for the last time, you were only seven. Practically still a wiggler.

After the end of the humans' session, the deaths of half your team, and a chance to catch your breath, long weeks had stretched into seemingly interminable months. You'd spend whole nights wandering down dark corridors alone, anxious for a fresh session, an opportunity not to repeat your past mistakes. And suddenly it hadn't been enough time for anything.

What little time you had together was nothing near enough, and you wonder if even its memory is starting to slip away from you. You wonder if Terezi is wondering the same thing. And you wonder what Dave's doing, wherever he is. Back on Earth? Who fucking knows.

* * *

You run the code again, and curse because you know you're going to end up rewriting this entire section. This isn't even the main program you're supposed to be fixing up into a decent, salable product; it's just a secondary program that will let you escape the colony's firewalls and get you onto the universal channels you need. You half consider giving up for today, but you've sunk a shitton of hours into this project already, and you're so close you can smell it.

* * *

It would be easier if you could forget your time on that meteor, but that would be impossible.

You hated him even before he arrived on the meteor. He was one of the humans, the worthless creatures who'd caused the mess you'd initially blamed on John.

But it was easy to see it as this guy's fault, once Terezi started talking to him. Not just talking, either--she'd burst out into fits of cackling laughter, breaking the quiet of the lab room, drowning out for short, inexplicable spurts the quiet clack of fingers on keyboards. You looked up the first few times, feeling responsible as a leader to know what the fuss was about, but after one too many dismissive replies of "It was just something Dave said," you stopped asking. After that, her laughter only made you seethe at him, a human you barely knew, but who seemed responsible for all of your misery.

Things only got worse when he arrived in person.

* * *

You were able to ignore him for a little while. You had a new moirail to take care of, and even if your moirallegiance wasn't formed under ideal circumstances, it was just as new and exciting and stressful and time-consuming as any other. And then the pale rapture wore off and he was just Gamzee: lovable, terrifying Gamzee, who you were still afraid you didn't understand, that you would never understand, that he would do something insane and unpredictable and you'd have more of the blood of your friends on your hands.

It must have worn off for him, too, because he stopped coming to you as frequently. You only saw him when he had problems, and as much as you worried about how one-sided the relationship still was, you were far more worried about what would happen if it failed. So you did your best to be there for him when he needed you, and directed your own misery inwards. Writing absurd, paradoxical memos to your past and future selves, you became your own conciliator.

Even you stopped responding to your own bullshit after a while, though, so you'd just write long, one-sided rants about everything you didn't realize was weighing on you, or you'd skip Trollian entirely and stay up through the day walking the unexplored corridors of the meteor, talking to yourself.

You needed some respite from hating yourself, and you found it by hating Dave. He was a fucking idiot, leading Terezi on like that with his clusterfuck of an ambiguously red relationship. As reluctant as you are to admit it, the woman who's now your matesprit was at first the only reason you realized you hated him at all. You thought there might be something more there, and any idiot could see that the way you danced around each other and flared up at each other was a state that couldn't last without bursting into something or fizzling out.

But aside from pushing Dave's buttons once in a while, you mostly kept to yourself. It finally started to sink in that you'd lost your whole planet and many of your closest friends. You were supposed to be the leader, and half your team had died--not even from anything the game had thrown at you, but from sheer murderous dumbfuckery. You could have stopped Eridan. You let Equius and Nepeta die. No one was under any obligation to be there for you, so you decided to grow the fuck up and take care of yourself.

You still noticed how much time Dave and Terezi spent together, and you were jealous, of course, but it wasn't just that. You resented the fact that he wasn't alone like you were. The caliginous spark you might have felt ignite when you first saw each other died quickly as you forced yourself not to care.

* * *

Until one night when he found you in the laboratory raving at yourself and taking out your frustrations on the stupid equipment. You think he might have been trying to get your attention, or he might just have been standing there watching you like a creep, but you didn't care anymore. You did not fucking care about Dave Strider, and you never would.

You'd had it with him, and with the game, and with failing everyone, especially yourself. You let out a forceful breath and slumped against the wall, and didn't speak.

You finally muttered into the darkness, "I hope she does better than I did."

You were surprised when he spoke. You'd wanted and feared any kind of response. "What are you even on about now?"

"Your human sister," you said without thinking. "I hope she's a better leader than me. I hope she can keep this clusterfuck of miserable misfits, you and I included, together and alive."

"Yeah man," he said, standing up straight to look at you with an inscrutable expression, "she will. Rose knows her stuff like Keanu Reeves knows his expressions. Because, you know, he has like two."

"Heh." You had to be fucking exhausted if Strider's jokes were sounding funny. "You know not even troll Keanu Reeves was ever that great? But yes, I damn well hope so. I thought I knew what I was doing and look where that got us. So I hope Rose can be what I couldn't, that she can be what we need. That she's the hero I'm not."

He didn't say anything to that, and you stopped staring at your feet to look up at him in surprise. For once you hadn't meant to shut him up.

"What, silence from the self-proclaimed knight of gurgling word muck and douchebagginess?"

He actually sat down next to you, muttering "Shut it," under his breath. He didn't look at you, and you didn't need to see his eyes to understand the vacant stare on his face. It was how you felt, too. "You know," he said, "even with all the time in the world on my hands I still couldn't help people when they really needed it."

"At least you got somewhere," you said, resentful. "I mean look at you, you're a god!"

"Yeah? Well whoop-di-fuckin'-do. What good do shitty pajamas do when it's already too damn late?"

You realized you weren't alone.

* * *

You hated him. But you respected him.

The next time you saw him, you caught the look in his eye, a challenge that said "strife with me", and you were more than happy to. The agreement to hurt but not to harm didn't need to be spoken. You were connected in some intangible way, and every cut of his sword was a cut through the shell you'd created around yourself. Even if he didn't understand kismesissitude, couldn't quite feel the same way you did, you knew you both understood the feeling that when you were fighting with each other, you were alive.

And you talked. A lot. About the ideals you felt you'd failed, and roles you weren't meant for. A future you couldn't control and a past you couldn't change. Sometimes it felt like he was more of a moirail to you than your moirail. Gamzee would give you the best conciliation he could, but he didn't understand the things about you that Dave understood. Carrying the responsibilities of your team, making sure you weren't doomed to fail. Knowing that you'd failed the people who mattered to you most.

And sometimes you didn't have to say much. You'd just sit together, not strifing, not speaking. You could never feel alone at those times.

At some point, you stopped calling him 'Strider'.

Of course you still argued with him. You'd rant out everything that was terrible with the world as if the blame lay squarely on his shoulders, and he'd smirk like he knew what you were talking about better than you. Most of the time he did.

* * *

The strifes became something more, for you at least. You didn't fight with weapons anymore, but hand to hand, man to troll, knight to knight. You craved his hatred and his respect. You wanted him to tear you apart from the inside out. You trusted him with your every flaw.

You wanted him as a kismesis, and you worried that he knew that.

The thought of approaching him with that idea was something you recoiled from like Alternian sunlight. You'd gone down that humiliating path once before, of having the idiocy to think of a human as your fated kismesis. But how else could you describe the relationship you had with Dave?

It surprised both of you when in the middle of a strife you threw him against the floor and, shaking, brought your lips to his.

He didn't push you away. The uncertain contact seemed to last forever. Finally he pulled at your hair to bring you closer, perhaps a little harder than he'd meant to, or perhaps knowing exactly what he was doing. Either way, you loved it.

* * *

You'd find each other in the hallways late into the morning. You'd pour yourself out to him, an exhilarating catharsis. Once he found his rhythm, he'd tell you everything he hated about you, everything that you hated about yourself, and you'd fight that, overcoming it, defeating it, accepting it. You'd take advantage of his weaknesses in the same way, and together you made each other whole.

You'd thought you'd know what to do when you found a perfect romance, but this was simply acting on instinct. He got adrenaline rushing through your veins, blinded you with emotion, left you giddily exhausted. You started sleeping regularly again. Sometimes you'd collapse together on one of the ubiquitous piles of junk that you were only at that point starting to realize the appeal of, and wake up in the evening just to start tearing each other apart again.

Even you didn't realize that you were slowly pushing the boundaries of the relationship, from violent kisses that were equal parts contests of supremacy and expressions of intimacy, to digging your nails into his skin to the point of drawing blood. More than anything it was an invitation for him to do the same, which he did, because he seemed to understand you even when you were too hesitant to express yourself in words.

You relished the times when you were able to make him lose his cool, force him to acknowledge that he was every bit as vulnerable as you were. He'd attack you with streams of angry cursing and press his blunt nails into the scars on your side. Fucking hell, that was painfully addicting.

You loved it, being alive like this. By this point he knew to captchalogue his shades before you got close, because they were the first thing you'd go for. You needed to see that look in his eyes that said he needed you as much as you needed him. You drank up his antipathy and attention like it was filling a hole in your heart.

* * *

When you'd arrived, you'd wished so badly that the humans would just disappear. As you neared the final confrontation, it became clearer and clearer that you'd never see any of them again, and you were afraid that it would break you. You couldn't lose the one person who'd made everything this hellish game had put you through okay.

The night before the final battle, you'd had a strife, the first time you'd fought with weapons in a while. This time was serious: you had to be prepared to fight for your lives. You'd poured all your tension and fear into finding his weaknesses, making sure he knew exactly what he had to protect. That night, it inspired more anger to see him fail, to have to turn your sickle at the last moment to slam him with the flat, than to see him deflect your strokes with ease. Afraid to lose him, you hated his weaknesses more than ever.

When you couldn't strife any more, you put your sickle back in your strife specibus and sat down. Despite your exhaustion, adrenaline still coursed through you, shattering your every nerve. He slid down the wall next to you, saying nothing.

You threw your arms around him. The end was approaching, and you couldn't face it.

He reluctantly returned the hug, unsure of what to do. You understood why--he'd always subtly relied on you for cues on adept blackrom behavior, and this wasn't it. So you reminded him that you hated him by digging your nails into his back, albeit more gently than at other times. He was going to leave you alone after this, the fucker. He couldn't give you assurance that everything would be okay.

He returned the gesture, and you sat there for a moment holding each other way more tightly than was comfortable. You loved this pain. You wanted more of it. So you brought your mouth to his and scraped your teeth against his lips, his tongue, making it hurt. You hated him like you'd never hated him before, and you loved him more than ever.

You wiped your mouth and took his hand, smearing your blood with his. That bright red had always seemed to be mocking you, and you wondered if maybe that was what fated kismesissitude was about. In the final battle, you'd stand together, two knights of bright red, inseparably tied by an invisible black string.

When you finally crawled into your recuperacoon, every part of you was sore, and shallow red scratches covered your body. You slept a dreamless sleep.

* * *

In that last moment, his hand slipped away from yours and you tried to call out to him, but your voice was torn from you by the sheer force of reality itself tearing apart and being remade. Your small, lonely voice was lost in the din, one mote of dust trying to reach another. Then the sensation of his hand on yours faded, and the image of his face dimmed.

You'll admit to yourself, if not to anyone else, that you cried over him. For a while after you'd returned to Alternia, there were lonely days when you stayed up late, furious at him for leaving you without your kismesis. Even if even now you couldn't imagine taking another, there are three other quadrants, you told yourself. It shouldn't be hard to surround yourself with other people who care about you.

You're still smashing code angrily into your husktop, trying to force your way through the problems you should be solving with cleverness. It finally seems to be coming together, and you feel a twinge of gratification for that.

You send it off to Sollux, not caring that he's probably talking to Terezi right now. You just want to accomplish something for once, and you feel like you're justified in claiming the little burst of self-esteem you'll hopefully receive when he runs the code with the pieces he's put together, and tells you it does exactly what it's supposed to.

You fidget with impatience. He takes a while to get back to you.

TA: kk, ii don't know what two make of thii2, but ii ran your code, and there are ton2 of new channel2 we now have acce22 two.  
TA: ii thought you miight be iintere2ted iin thii2 one iin partiicular.

He sends you a screenshot, and you have to stop yourself from shaking in your chair. Even after all this time, it only takes you an instant to recognize the Pesterchum interface.

Without a second thought, you bring up the window on your own computer and type in 'turntechGodhead'. It takes you three tries before you slow down enough to enter the words without making a typo.

'turntechGodhead is online.' the program notifies you, and you shakily click on the name. You remind yourself that this could theoretically be anyone, that even if you have miraculously managed to contact the human universe, people grow up, and change more than their usernames. That doesn't stop you from typing into the chat window the one question you need to know the answer to.

CG: DAVE?


End file.
